Posted
by
Zonk
on Monday December 11, 2006 @02:47AM
from the could-even-silver-surfer-have-ridden-that-wave dept.

scdeimos writes "The prototype of a new solar patrol telescope in New Mexico recorded a tsunami-like shock wave rolling across the visible face of the Sun following a major flare event on Wednesday, Dec. 6. The shock wave, known as a Moreton wave, also destroyed or compressed two filaments of cool gas at opposite sides of the solar hemisphere." From the article: "'These large scale 'blast' waves occur infrequently, however, are very powerful. They quickly propagate in a matter of minutes covering the whole Sun, sweeping away filamentary material,' said Dr. K. S. Balasubramaniam. 'It is unusual to see such powerful waves encompassing the whole sun from ground based observatories. Its significance comes from the fact that these waves are occurring near solar minimum, when intense activity is yet to pick up.'"

Personally I think we should turn off or at least dim the Sun anyway. It is, unlike CO2, the ultimate cause of global warming.

The Sun is the source of the heat for global warming, but it's the CO2 that keeps it on Earth.

There is something reminiscent of the modern Republican party in your response, though. Oversimplification, not accepting personal responsibility, and proposing an impossible solution. The only thing missing is you haven't suggested paying for it by lowering taxes.

I'm sure you didn't get modded down just because of me. The only thing in your post that implied "I'm joking" was "turn off... the Sun". Republicans actually do blame the Sun entirely (well, the Sun and volcanos, I think. Really, anything except humans) for global warming, so really, even if you aren't of the addled-minded, you certainly sounded like one.In my defense, you'll note I didn't say you were a Republican, just that your post was very similar to Republican rhetoric.

Off Topic, I know. So don't flame me too bad. But I just couldn't let the partisan idiot go by with his snide remarks."There is something reminiscent of the modern Republican party in your response, though. Oversimplification, not accepting personal responsibility, and proposing an impossible solution."

Actually, the same can be said of Democrats as well. End Poverty, tax the rich. As for personal responsibility and such, go talk to the PI lawyers that line the coffers of democrats running for office.

I'll ignore that "snide remark" (in fact, I didn't insult the OP at all, yet you did insult me, right off the bat even), since getting too hung up over it doesn't do any good.

I get the impression (correct me if I'm wrong) that you aren't a Dem or a Repub. You (I gather) find both Dems and Repubs to be pretty much the mirror image of each other, both equally bad, just in opposites of sorts. I'm not going to defend the short-comings of the De

Nobody has mentioned yet how fucking awesome this is. I expected you would, with your "seriously radical" subject line, but you didn't.

It's a huge tsunami of terrible nuclear fire. A gigantic shock wave of deadly radioactive plasma. Large enough and forceful enough to sustain itself across the surface of the sun, obliterating the few visible features it has. You're in awe when somebody says "the explosion would be visible from the moon" but this is unfathomably larger. It's immense enough to be an astonish

FEMA is too busy trying to save itself. Superman will take care of this. When the Fortress of Solitude melts over while he's bonking Lois Lane, the tsunami rays will bounce off his naked "buns of steel" and cancel out the rest of the tsunami rays. Problem sovled with FEMA bonking anything.

With this recent sun activity people in the northern regions of the globe should be able to see Northern Lights, probably stronger than the usual flares since the sun is now (almost) at a minimum.
Although I guess it's a bit of bad luck for Discovery and it's crew with the chance of powerful radiation storms...

I read the article but my very first question wasn't answered. So:Anybody have any back-of-the-envelope or better calculations as to how fast this wave must be moving? The Sun's a pretty big bit of real estate, and this looks like it was much, much faster than an earthbound/waterborne Tsunami.

I was wondering the same thing. Not that anyone really has a realistic sense of scale when it comes to things as big as the sun, but the frames in that animation could be separated by seconds or hours and that article gives no indication one way or the other. I guess either way, it's safe to say "really fast." It sure didn't take days from what I gather and anything that travels around the sphere of the sun in less than a day has got to be moving pretty quick.-N

The circumference of the sun is 4,373,000 km. Call "matter of minutes" 10 minutes = 600 seconds. Divide circumference by two since the wave propagates in both directions. The wave is travelling at 3600 km/s. That's pretty damn fast.

A couple of days ago if you googled 'Solar Tsunami' the top hit was from some nutter who had a whole website that was promoting the theory that underneath the photosphere there was a solid iron-silica surface, thankfully the scientists had enough imagination to call it a tsunami rather than a Moreton wave.

I can think of some other crackpot science that needs to be googlebombed into non-significance.